Adri­anne Curry, who was cul­tur­ally rel­e­vant at some point, tweeted a photo of her­self play­ing World of War­craft naked yes­ter­day. As if a play­boy model wasn’t appeal­ing enough for nerds, know­ing that one plays WoW with them naked might be too much for some to handle.

That’s right you lit­tle geeks, Adri­anne Curry plays some butt-naked (and STONED) World of War­craft. Did you hear that? That was 11.5 mil­lion WoW play­ers crash­ing the Naz­grel server in an attempt to scout out her Level 33 Night Elf and steal it away from a Level 4 Brady.

Adri­anne Curry, the first win­ner of real­ity TV series America’s Next Top Model, plays Blizzard’s World of War­craft in the nude — and she’s got the pic­tures to prove it.
Via her Twit­ter, Curry announced that after an intense work­out at her kick­box­ing class she would be tak­ing a shower, then spend­ing her Sun­day after­noon get­ting stoned and play­ing World of War­craft naked.

Head on over to The Super­fi­cial to check out even more provoca­tive pic­tures of Mrs. Peter Brady, includ­ing one of the WoW’er with a Darth Vader statue between her breasts. Why? Because he likes it there. Don’t ques­tion the Vade!

Thanks to g3ne, who would hide him­self in a com­puter tower for one glimpse of Adrianne’s spicy body. Get it? Spicy. Like curry! God I’m good at this.

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A new Halo trailer has descended from the heavens.

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Nat­ural dis­as­ters and acci­dents hap­pen with lit­tle or NO warn­ings. One of the best ways to deal with such sit­u­a­tions is by being a bit pre­pared. By being pre­pared I mean more than just the First Aid Box; stuff like lights, shel­ter, tools, sup­plies, instal­la­tions and kits that can help you deal with emer­gen­cies. Here’s a look at Ten Neces­si­ties When Dis­as­ter Strikes; a com­pi­la­tion of what we got on YD.

10) Swiss Peace Knife by Qian Jiang, Yiy­ing Wu & Car­olina Flores

What’s Spe­cial: A pocket tool that holds a pill box, ban­dages, dis­in­fec­tant spray and whistle.

9) Uni­fied Sprin­kler And Light by Duck Image Studio

What’s Spe­cial: A water sprin­kler sys­tem that includes an LED light sys­tem to illu­mi­nate the room dur­ing emergencies.

8 ) H2O by Leonardo Manavella

What’s Spe­cial: Almost always water is in of short sup­ply dur­ing the sal­vaging oper­a­tions and at the dis­as­ter site. H2O is a spe­cial­ized con­tainer that turns urine into drink­able water. Before you go ewww…consider this…dying parched or drink­ing re-cycled pee?

7) Dis­pos­able Pre-Paid Phone by IDEA

What’s Spe­cial: This dis­pos­able phone can be worn like a bracelet and has very basic fea­tures. It’s meant for quick calls for help and sup­ports pre-paid services.

6) Ocean Res­cue by Seol-Hee Sohn, Seung-Hyun Yoon & Cheol-Yeon Cho

What’s Spe­cial: The Ocean Res­cue dis­tills the salty sea water into pure drink­ing water, it pro­vides loca­tion infor­ma­tion of the ship-wrecked vic­tims by emit­ting light at night and col­or­ful smoke dur­ing the day.

5) Recover Shel­ter by Matthew Mal­one, Amanda Gold­berg, Jen­nifer Met­calf and Grant Meacham

What’s Spe­cial: Designed for dis­as­ter relief, the Recover Shel­ter can house a fam­ily of four for a month. It can be set up by one per­son in min­utes, col­lapsed into either of two con­fig­u­ra­tions for trans­porta­tion (horse-shoe shape or flat), and is made of 100% polypropy­lene. Another big plus is that the ridges can col­lect drink­ing water when it rains.

4) The Wiz­ard by HJC Design

What’s Spe­cial: The Wiz­ard is a safety-harness that can help peo­ple get off build­ings dur­ing an emer­gency. It uses web­bing woven from liq­uid poly­ester capa­ble of with­stand­ing forces in excess of 2 tonnes. Engi­neer­ing plas­tics based on semi-crystalline polyamides were spec­i­fied for the case and inter­nal drum, encas­ing a cas­sette spring recoil sys­tem capa­ble of deploy­ing a 50-250m Kevlar lanyard.

3) Emer­gency Stool by d e Sellers

What’s Spe­cial: Wall mounted and unas­sum­ing, this flat-pack Baltic Birch ply­wood opens up to form an Emer­gency Stool to help you climb out of sticky situations.

2) The Shooter Fire Extin­guisher by Eun­jung Kim, Yang­woo Kim & Junyi Heo

What’s Spe­cial: This Shooter is a light weight gun loaded with CO2 car­tridges. A laser guid­ance sys­tem helps you take aim and an alarm but­ton to let the rest of the gang know your position.

1) Pul­light Dynamo by Sebastien Sauvage

What’s Spe­cial: This flash­light is pow­ered by stored kinetic energy built up from pulling a string. The dynamo can charge devices like a mobile phone or iPod, mak­ing it the per­fect handy device dur­ing an emer­gency situation!

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HTC today intro­duced the HTC Tat­too, an Android-based phone that fea­tur­ing HTC Sense UI used on HTC Hero. HTC Tat­too inte­grates Google’s inno­v­a­tive mobile ser­vices includ­ing: Google Maps, search, Google Mail, and Android mar­ket where users can down­load thou­sands of pop­u­lar appli­ca­tions and games.

It also comes com­plete with a broad vari­ety of hard­ware fea­tures includ­ing a 3.2 megapixel aut­o­fo­cus cam­era, 3.5mm stereo head­set jack and expand­able microSD mem­ory. The HTC Tat­too will be avail­able in Europe first at the begin­ning of Octo­ber, and will roll out in mar­kets around the world in the fol­low­ing months.

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Blue­tooth does not describe a den­tal con­di­tion in which a patient has blue teeth. The term Blue­tooth sig­ni­fies a spe­cial new tech­nol­ogy, a tech­nol­ogy of the 21st Cen­tury. The devices with Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy allow the user of such devices to con­duct 2-way trans­mis­sions over short dis­tances. Usu­ally the dis­tance between the com­mu­ni­cat­ing Blue­tooth devices runs no more than 150 feet. . The indi­vid­ual who has access to two or more devices with Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy has the abil­ity to car­ry­out such short-range communications.

One big advan­tage to hav­ing access to some of the devices with the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy is the oppor­tu­nity one gains to con­duct a con­ver­sa­tion between mobile and sta­tion­ary tech­no­log­i­cal items. The Blue­tooth car kit under­lines the plus side of hav­ing access to the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy. The Blue­tooth car kit sets the stage for a con­ver­sa­tion between a mobile and a sta­tion­ary elec­tri­cal gadget.

For exam­ple, the Blue­tooth car kit per­mits a cell phone in the garage to com­mu­ni­cate with a home com­puter. Thanks to Blue­tooth, a car dri­ver with a cell phone could sit inside a car and send a mes­sage to a home com­puter. By the same token, Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy could allow a car to send a mes­sage to a per­sonal com­puter. Such a mes­sage could inform a car owner that the motor vehi­cle sit­ting in the garage needed an oil change, rota­tion of the tires or some other rou­tine procedure.

Not all of mod­ern auto­mo­biles come equipped with Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy. So far only Acura, BMW, Toy­ota Prius and Lexus have cho­sen to pro­vide the con­sumer with this spe­cial fea­ture. In order for the car owner to ben­e­fit from the poten­tial of Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy in a motor vehi­cle, all of the devices with that tech­nol­ogy must use the same type of profile.

For exam­ple, if a car audio sys­tem con­tains devices with the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy, then any of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions that take place between those devices require Blue­tooth equip­ment that uses the same pro­file. Such restric­tions typ­i­cally spec­ify that the Blue­tooth car kit will work only if all of the inter-device com­mu­ni­cat­ing involves equip­ment that oper­ates under the hands-free pro­file. In other words, a Blue­tooth car kit would not be expected to allow a cell phone with a head­set pro­file to com­mu­ni­cate with a com­puter that had a dial-up net­work­ing profile.

Of course Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy is not con­fined to the auto­mo­bile. It has also been respon­si­ble for allow­ing young teens to lis­ten to music from an iPod, while at the same time being equipped and ready to han­dle any num­ber of cell phone calls. On other occa­sions those same teens might choose to use the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy to send selected images from a dig­i­tal cam­era to a home computer.

The Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy has demon­strated the abil­ity to lay the ground­work for cre­ation of a mobile enter­tain­ment sys­tem. It could also facil­i­tate the quick assem­bly of an oper­at­ing and mobile office space. The father of the young teen who was lis­ten­ing to a iPod could very-well be the trav­el­ing busi­ness man at the air­port, the man who must wait for a delayed flight. Access to the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy would give such a man the abil­ity to set-up a tem­po­rary office in the air­port terminal.

Once that same trav­el­ing busi­ness­man had reached his des­ti­na­tion, and once he had set­tled in a motel room, then he might use the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy to send sig­nals from a lap­top com­puter to a printer server. Both younger and older adults have demon­strated that Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy is def­i­nitely a tech­nol­ogy of the 21st Cen­tury. Who could guess that the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy got its name from King Harold, Blue­tooth, of Den­mark, who lived back in the 10th Cen­tury? King Harold sought to unite the coun­tries of Scan­di­navia, much as the Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy helps the dif­fer­ent types of infor­ma­tional devices to work in unison.

Have a Blue­tooth enabled device and want to get the most out of it? Use our trou­bleshoot­ing guide or fre­quently asked ques­tions to make sure your device is work­ing as it should. Also, learn how other com­pa­nies are apply­ing Blue­tooth tech­nol­ogy to their every­day work­ing envi­ron­ment. Visit us for the lat­est blue­tooth head­set.

Author: Nathan T. Lynch
Arti­cle Source: EzineArticles.com
Pro­vided by: Canada duty tariff

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It’s that time of the year again, Back-to-school. I still remem­ber those days. Even though it’s been 2 years since I’ve had to go back to school, I still love this time of the year.

This time of the year also means stu­dents will want the lat­est gad­gets before head­ing off to col­lege. That’s where we come in and tell you some of the hottest gad­gets out there and what you need to make this year in col­lege a success.

Log­itech Squeeze­box Boom

Col­lege stu­dents love music, so the Squeeze­box is per­fect. The Wi-Fi radio speak­ers can stream pre­mium music con­tent from online music ser­vices, along with inter­net radio sta­tions. Some of the ser­vices offered are Sir­ius, Rhap­sody, Slacker, Pan­dora, and Last.fm. But that’s not all, it also streams music straight from a PC or Mac on a Wi-Fi net­work. For $5 more, you can add an exten­sion cable to add an iPod, PC or another source. It’s avail­able on the Log­itech web­site and will run you $300.

iPhone 3GS

The iPhone is still the hottest phone in the mar­ket and every­one wants to get their hands on the one of these devices. The iPhone 3GS takes it to another level by offer­ing video record­ing and edit­ing capa­bil­ity. While many may not like AT&T, its the only car­rier if you want the iPhone. The 3GS could end up being your go to device for everything.

Ama­zon Kin­dle DX

Car­ry­ing around those heavy text­books no longer applies with the Ama­zon DX. It’s only 19 ounces and can hold hun­dred of text­books for all your classes. You can down­load books under 60 sec­onds but most col­lege kids are also pretty savvy inter­net users, so look online, you’ll also get access to text­books from such edu­ca­tional pub­lish­ers as Cen­gage Learn­ing, Pear­son and Wiley. The 9.7-inch screen wire­less read­ing device costs $489. If you can find text­books online, then the cost of the device might not be so bad, con­sid­er­ing text­books can be very expensive.

Playsta­tion 3 Slim

Sony came out last week and made their gam­ing con­sole very appeal­ing by mak­ing it slim­mer, lighter and faster. Most col­lege stu­dents will already be in school when Sony releases the gam­ing con­sole, but it’ll be out dur­ing the first week of Sep­tem­ber, so it’s not too far away. Plus with the slim­mer design, it’ll be eas­ier to carry around.

iPod Touch 3rd Generation/Microsoft Zune HD

Apple is plan­ning to release their 3rd gen­er­a­tion iPod Touch music player. It’s rumored to be updated with a cam­era. The iPod Touch is one of the best sell­ing music play­ers out in the mar­ket, so why not get the updated version.

If you’re not an Apple per­son, then Microsoft is releas­ing the Zune HD. It’ll offer a touch­screen with a Tegra proces­sor, and updated OS. Plus it looks good enough to com­pete against Apple’s Touch.

The Zune HD will start out at $220 for the 16GB ver­sion, while the Apple iPod Touch will prob­a­bly be in the $250 range for 16GB version.

Mac­book Pro

Apple has low­ered the price for their Mac­book Pro line and also included the 13-inch in their Pro fam­ily. The 13-inch starts out at $1,199, while the 15-inch will run you around $1,699, and then the high end 17-inch, starts out at $2,499. All of the Mac­book Pros are avail­able with a stu­dent dis­count on Apple’s Edu­ca­tion Store.

Brita Ultra­max Filter

If you’ve ever lived in a dorm room, then you know you never want to drink the water on cam­pus. Most kids end up get­ting bot­tled water but that adds up and not really green. To solve that prob­lem, get a Brita fil­ter, bet­ter yet, get a Brita Ultra­max water dis­penser. It’ll give you 18 8 ounce glasses of water and has a elec­tronic gauge that’ll tell you when it’s time to change the fil­ter. The water dis­penser will cost you $42. Split it with your room­mate and you’re look­ing at $21 for a con­ve­nient and healthy water solution.

Nikon Coolpix S1000PJ Pro­jec­tor Camera

Teens love tak­ing pics of them­selves and their friends and what bet­ter way to share them right away instead of wait­ing for them to be uploaded on Face­book, than on your dorm room wall. The Nikon pro­jec­tor cam­era solves that prob­lem. It can make a 40-inch pic­ture from six feet away, show­ing your friends all the stu­pid things you were doing while get­ting ham­mered last night. It’s a fun and an expen­sive cam­era. But you pay more for the lat­est fea­tures and a pro­jec­tor on a cam­era is some­thing. The cost of the Nikon pro­jec­tor cam­era is $429 and will be avail­able soon, in September.

Nin­tendo DSi

Nintendo’s most pop­u­lar hand­held gam­ing con­sole will def­i­nitely make the breaks between classes a lit­tle more fun. No one really stud­ies in between classes right? So, why not pull out your DSi and con­tinue your saved game until it’s time to head into Econ 101. The hand­held con­sole will run you around $169.99 and is avail­able now.

Shure Pro­fes­sional Headphones

I’m a big fan of head­phones and when Shure, known for their ear phones, released three pro­fes­sional head­sets, I wanted one. They’re avail­able in 3 dif­fer­ent mod­els. Prices for the pro­fes­sional head­sets ranges from $59.99 for the entry level head­set, $99 for the mid level head­sets and $199.99 for the higher end model. They’re def­i­nitely worth grab­bing if you’re going to cram for exams and papers. Might as well lis­ten to your music comfortably.

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What does FedEx, Pfizer, Wachovia, 3Com, Mel­lon Finan­cial, Shur­gard Stor­age, Sem­pra Energy and Proc­tor & Gam­ble have in com­mon? What board com­mit­tee exists for only 10% of pub­licly traded com­pa­nies but gen­er­ates 6.5% greater returns for those com­pa­nies? What is the sin­gle largest bud­get item after salaries and man­u­fac­tur­ing equipment?

Tech­nol­ogy deci­sions will out­live the tenure of the man­age­ment team mak­ing those deci­sions. While the cur­rent fast pace of tech­no­log­i­cal change means that cor­po­rate tech­nol­ogy deci­sions are fre­quent and far-reaching, the con­se­quences of the decisions-both good and bad-will stay with the firm for a long time. Usu­ally tech­nol­ogy deci­sions are made uni­lat­er­ally within the Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­ogy (IT) group, over which senior man­age­ment chose to have no input or over­sight. For the Board of a busi­ness to per­form its duty to exer­cise busi­ness judg­ment over key deci­sions, the Board must have a mech­a­nism for review­ing and guid­ing tech­nol­ogy decisions.

A recent exam­ple where this sort of over­sight would have helped was the Enter­prise Resource Plan­ning (ERP) mania of the mid-1990’s. At the time, many com­pa­nies were invest­ing tens of mil­lions of dol­lars (and some­times hun­dreds of mil­lions) on ERP sys­tems from SAP and Ora­cle. Often these pur­chases were jus­ti­fied by exec­u­tives in Finance, HR, or Oper­a­tions strongly advo­cat­ing their pur­chase as a way of keep­ing up with their com­peti­tors, who were also installing such sys­tems. CIO’s and line exec­u­tives often did not give enough thought to the prob­lem of how to make a suc­cess­ful tran­si­tion to these very com­plex sys­tems. Align­ment of cor­po­rate resources and man­age­ment of orga­ni­za­tional change brought by these new sys­tems was over­looked, often result­ing in a cri­sis. Many bil­lions of dol­lars were spent on sys­tems that either should not have been bought at all or were bought before the client com­pa­nies were prepared.

Cer­tainly, no suc­cess­ful medium or large busi­ness can be run today with­out com­put­ers and the soft­ware that makes them use­ful. Tech­nol­ogy also rep­re­sents one of the sin­gle largest cap­i­tal and oper­at­ing line item for busi­ness expen­di­tures, out­side of labor and man­u­fac­tur­ing equip­ment. For both of these rea­sons, Board-level over­sight of tech­nol­ogy is appro­pri­ate at some level.

Can the Board of Direc­tors con­tinue to leave these fun­da­men­tal deci­sions solely to the cur­rent man­age­ment team? Most large tech­nol­ogy deci­sions are inher­ently risky (stud­ies have shown less than half deliver on promises), while poor deci­sions take years to be repaired or replaced. Over half of the tech­nol­ogy invest­ments are not return­ing antic­i­pated gains in busi­ness per­for­mance; Boards are con­se­quently becom­ing involved in tech­nol­ogy deci­sions. It is sur­pris­ing that only ten per­cent of the pub­licly traded cor­po­ra­tions have IT Audit Com­mit­tees as part of their boards. How­ever, those com­pa­nies enjoy a clear com­pet­i­tive advan­tage in the form of a com­pounded annual return 6.5% greater than their competitors.

Tec­tonic shifts are under way in how tech­nol­ogy is being sup­plied, which the Board needs to under­stand. IT indus­try con­sol­i­da­tion seri­ously decreases strate­gic flex­i­bil­ity by under­cut­ting management’s abil­ity to con­sider com­pet­i­tive options, and it cre­ates poten­tially dan­ger­ous reliance on only a few key suppliers.

The core asset of flour­ish­ing and last­ing busi­ness is the abil­ity to respond or even antic­i­pate the impact of out­side forces. Tech­nol­ogy has become a bar­rier to orga­ni­za­tional agility for a num­ber of reasons:

Core legacy sys­tems have cal­ci­fied
IT infra­struc­ture has failed to keep pace with changes in the busi­ness
Inflex­i­ble IT archi­tec­ture results in a high per­cent­age of IT expen­di­ture on main­te­nance of exist­ing sys­tems and not enough on new capa­bil­i­ties
Short term oper­a­tional deci­sions infringe on business’s long term capa­bil­ity to remain competitive

Tra­di­tional Boards lack the skills to ask the right ques­tions to ensure that tech­nol­ogy is con­sid­ered in the con­text of reg­u­la­tory require­ments, risk and agility. This is because tech­nol­ogy is a rel­a­tively new and fast-growing pro­fes­sion. CEOs have been around since the begin­ning of time, and finan­cial coun­selors have been evolv­ing over the past cen­tury. But tech­nol­ogy is so new, and its cost to deploy changes dra­mat­i­cally, that the tech­nol­ogy pro­fes­sion is still matur­ing. Tech­nol­o­gists have worked on how the sys­tems are designed and used to solve prob­lems fac­ing the busi­ness. Recently, they rec­og­nized a need to under­stand and be involved in the busi­ness strat­egy. The busi­ness leader and the finan­cial leader nei­ther have his­tory nor expe­ri­ence uti­liz­ing tech­nol­ogy and mak­ing key tech­nol­ogy deci­sions. The Board needs to be involved with the exec­u­tives mak­ing tech­nol­ogy deci­sions, just as the tech­nol­ogy leader needs Board sup­port and guid­ance in mak­ing those decisions.

Recent reg­u­la­tory man­dates such as Sarbanes-Oxley have changed the rela­tion­ship of the busi­ness leader and finan­cial leader. They in turn are ask­ing for sim­i­lar assur­ances from the tech­nol­ogy leader. The busi­ness leader and finan­cial leader have pro­fes­sional advi­sors to guide their deci­sions, such as lawyers, accoun­tants and invest­ment bankers. The tech­nol­o­gist has relied upon the ven­dor com­mu­nity or con­sul­tants who have their own per­spec­tive, and who might not always be able to pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions in the best inter­ests of the com­pany. The IT Audit Com­mit­tee of the Board can and should fill this gap.

What role should the IT Audit Com­mit­tee play in the orga­ni­za­tion? The IT Audit func­tion in the Board should con­tribute toward:

1. Bring­ing tech­nol­ogy strat­egy into align­ment with busi­ness strat­egy.
2. Ensur­ing that tech­nol­ogy deci­sions are in the best inter­ests of share­hold­ers.
3. Fos­ter­ing orga­ni­za­tional devel­op­ment and align­ment between busi­ness units.
4. Increas­ing the Board’s over­all under­stand­ing of tech­no­log­i­cal issues and con­se­quences within the com­pany. This type of under­stand­ing can­not come from finan­cial analy­sis alone.
5. Effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion between the tech­nol­o­gist and the Com­mit­tee members.

The IT Audit Com­mit­tee does not require addi­tional board mem­bers. Exist­ing board mem­bers can be assigned the respon­si­bil­ity, and use con­sul­tants to help them under­stand the issues suf­fi­ciently to pro­vide guid­ance to the tech­nol­ogy leader. A review of exist­ing IT Audit Com­mit­tee Char­ters shows the fol­low­ing com­mon characteristics:

1. Review, eval­u­ate and make rec­om­men­da­tions on technology-based issues of impor­tance to the busi­ness.
Appraise and crit­i­cally review the finan­cial, tac­ti­cal and strate­gic ben­e­fits of pro­posed major tech­nol­ogy related projects and tech­nol­ogy archi­tec­ture alter­na­tives.
Over­see and crit­i­cally review the progress of major tech­nol­ogy related projects and tech­nol­ogy archi­tec­ture deci­sions.
2. Advise the senior tech­nol­ogy man­age­ment team at the firm
3. Mon­i­tor the qual­ity and effec­tive­ness of tech­nol­ogy sys­tems and processes that relate to or affect the firm’s inter­nal con­trol systems.

Fun­da­men­tally, the Board’s role in IT Gov­er­nance is to ensure align­ment between IT ini­tia­tives and busi­ness objec­tives, mon­i­tor actions taken by the tech­nol­ogy steer­ing com­mit­tee, and val­i­date that tech­nol­ogy processes and prac­tices are deliv­er­ing value to the busi­ness. Strate­gic align­ment between IT and the busi­ness is fun­da­men­tal to build­ing a tech­nol­ogy archi­tec­tural foun­da­tion that cre­ates agile orga­ni­za­tions. Boards should be aware of tech­no­log­i­cal risk expo­sures, management’s assess­ment of those risks, and mit­i­ga­tion strate­gies con­sid­ered and adopted.

There are no new prin­ci­ples here-only affir­ma­tion of exist­ing gov­er­nance char­ters. The exe­cu­tion of tech­nol­ogy deci­sions falls upon the man­age­ment of the orga­ni­za­tion. The over­sight of man­age­ment is the respon­si­bil­ity of the Board. The Board needs to take appro­pri­ate own­er­ship and become proac­tive in gov­er­nance of the technology.

Do Boards need a Tech­nol­ogy Audit com­mit­tee? Yes, a Tech­nol­ogy Audit Com­mit­tee within the Board is war­ranted because it will lead to technology/business align­ment. It is more than sim­ply the right thing to do; it is a best prac­tice with real bottom-line benefits.

MICHAEL SIERSEMA is a Man­ag­ing Partner/CEO of Phoenix2000 Group LLC focus­ing on tech­nol­ogy advi­sory services.

Phoenix2000 Group is a new breed pro­fes­sional ser­vices part­ner­ship of senior tech­nol­o­gists that fit a niche at the senior exec­u­tive sup­port sys­tems. Like the CEO looks to lawyers for advice, the CFO leans on CPA and audit firm for coun­sel, the tech­nol­o­gist needs an orga­ni­za­tion to find true inde­pen­dent guid­ance. We don’t sell solu­tions, we sell answers. http://www.phoenix2000group.com

Author: Michael Siersema
Arti­cle Source: EzineArticles.com
Pro­vided by: Dig­i­tal Cam­era News

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Some basic premises often fash­ioned by lead­ers and sup­ported by the led exer­cise the col­lec­tive con­science of the led in so far as they stim­u­late a willed devel­op­ment. The devel­op­ment is usu­ally supe­rior but not nec­es­sar­ily civ­i­lized. The premises in ques­tion are of this form: Our level of tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment is sec­ond to none. Upon reach­ing this level, we also have to pre­pare our soci­ety for peace, and to guar­an­tee the peace, tech­nol­ogy must be revised to fos­ter the pol­icy of war. Tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment that is pushed in this direc­tion sets a dan­ger­ous prece­dent for other soci­eties that fear a threat to their respec­tive sov­er­eign­ties. They are pushed to also fos­ter a war technology.

In the domain of civ­i­liza­tion, this mode of devel­op­ment is not praise­wor­thy, nor is it morally jus­ti­fi­able. Since it is not morally jus­ti­fi­able, it is socially irre­spon­si­ble. An inspec­tion of the premises will reveal that it is the last one that poses a prob­lem. The last premise is the con­clu­sion of two pre­ced­ing premises but is not in any way log­i­cally deduced. What it shows is a pas­sion­ately deduced con­clu­sion, and being so, it fails to be reck­oned as a con­clu­sion from a ratio­nally pre­pared mind, at least at the time at which it was deduced.

A soci­ety that advances accord­ing to the above pre­sup­po­si­tions and espe­cially accord­ing to the illog­i­cal con­clu­sion — has trans­mit­ted the psy­che of non-negotiable supe­ri­or­ity to its peo­ple. All along, the power of pas­sion dic­tates the pace of human con­duct. Whether in con­struc­tive engage­ments or willed part­ner­ships, the prin­ci­ple of equal­ity fails to work pre­cisely because of the supe­ri­or­ity syn­drome that grips the leader and the led. And a dif­fer­ent soci­ety that refuses to share in the col­lec­tive sen­si­bil­i­ties or pas­sion of such soci­ety has, by the expected logic, become a poten­tial or actual enemy and faces con­fronta­tion on all pos­si­ble fronts.

Most of what we learn about the present world, of course, via the media, is dom­i­nated by state-of-the-art tech­nol­ogy. Soci­eties that have the most of such tech­nol­ogy are also, time and again, claimed to be the most advanced. It is not only their advance­ment that lifts them to the pin­na­cle of power, supe­ri­or­ity, and fame. They can also use tech­nol­ogy to sim­plify and move for­ward an under­stand­ing of life and nature in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, a direc­tion that tends to elim­i­nate, as much as pos­si­ble, a prior con­nec­tion between life and nature that was, in many respects, mys­ti­cal and unsafe. This last point does not nec­es­sar­ily mean that tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment is a mark of a supe­rior civilization.

What we need to know is that civ­i­liza­tion and tech­nol­ogy are not con­ju­gal terms. Civ­i­lized peo­ple may have an advanced tech­nol­ogy or they may not have it. Civ­i­liza­tion is not just a mat­ter of sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy or tech­ni­cal infra­struc­ture, or, again, the mar­vel of build­ings; it also has to do with the moral and men­tal reflexes of peo­ple as well as their level of social con­nect­ed­ness within their own soci­ety and beyond. It is from the gen­eral behav­iour makeup of peo­ple that all forms of phys­i­cal struc­tures could be cre­ated, so too the ques­tion of sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy. Thus, the kind of bridges, roads, build­ings, heavy machin­ery, among oth­ers, that we can see in a soci­ety could tell, in a gen­eral way, the behav­ioural pat­tern of the peo­ple. Behav­ioural pat­tern could also tell a lot about the extent to which the nat­ural envi­ron­ment has been uti­lized for infra­struc­tural activ­i­ties, sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy. Above all, behav­ioural pat­tern could tell a lot about the per­cep­tions and under­stand­ing of the peo­ple about other people.

I do believe and, I think, most peo­ple do believe that upon accel­er­at­ing the rate of infra­struc­tural activ­i­ties and tech­nol­ogy, the envi­ron­ment has to recede in its nat­u­ral­ness. Once advanc­ing tech­nol­ogy (and its atten­dant struc­tures or ideas) com­petes with the green envi­ron­ment for space, this envi­ron­ment that houses trees, grass, flow­ers, all kinds of ani­mals and fish has to shrink in size. Yet the growth of pop­u­la­tion, the relent­less human crav­ing for qual­ity life, the need to con­trol life with­out depend­ing on the unpre­dictable con­di­tion of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment prompt the use of tech­nol­ogy. Tech­nol­ogy need not pose unwar­ranted dan­ger to the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. It is the mis­use of tech­nol­ogy that is in ques­tion. While a soci­ety may justly uti­lize tech­nol­ogy to improve qual­ity of life, its peo­ple also have to ask: how much tech­nol­ogy do we need to safe­guard the nat­ural envi­ron­ment? Sup­pose soci­ety Y blends the mod­er­ate use of tech­nol­ogy with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment in order to off­set the reck­less destruc­tion of the lat­ter, then this kind of posi­tion­ing prompts the point that soci­ety Y is a lover of the prin­ci­ple of bal­ance. From this prin­ci­ple, one can boldly con­clude that soci­ety Y favours sta­bil­ity more than chaos, and has, there­fore, the sense of moral and social respon­si­bil­ity. Any state-of-the-art tech­nol­ogy points to the sophis­ti­ca­tion of the human mind, and it indi­cates that the nat­ural envi­ron­ment has been cav­a­lierly tamed.

If humans do not want to live at the mercy of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment which, of course, is an uncer­tain way of life but accord­ing to their own pre­dicted pace, then the use of tech­nol­ogy is a mat­ter of course. It would seem that the prin­ci­ple of bal­ance that soci­ety Y has cho­sen could only be for a short while or that this is more of a make-believe posi­tion than a real one. For when the power of the human mind grat­i­fies itself fol­low­ing a momen­tous achieve­ment in tech­nol­ogy, retreat, or, at best, a slow-down is quite unusual. It is as if the human mind is telling itself: tech­no­log­i­cal advance­ment has to accel­er­ate with­out any obstruc­tion. A retreat or a grad­ual process is an insult to the inquir­ing mind. This kind of thought process only points out the enigma of the mind, its dark side, not its finest area. And in seek­ing to inter­ro­gate the present mode of a cer­tain tech­nol­ogy accord­ing to the instruc­tions of the mind, the role of ethics is indispensable.

Is it morally right to use this kind of tech­nol­ogy for this kind of prod­uct? And is it morally right to use this kind of prod­uct? Both ques­tions hint that the prod­uct or prod­ucts in ques­tion are either harm­ful or not, envi­ron­men­tally friendly or not, or that they do not only cause harm directly to humans but directly to the envi­ron­ment too. And if, as I have stated, the pur­pose of tech­nol­ogy is to improve the qual­ity of life, then to use tech­nol­ogy to pro­duce prod­ucts that harm both humans and the nat­ural envi­ron­ment con­tra­dicts the pur­pose of tech­nol­ogy, and it also fal­si­fies an asser­tion that humans are ratio­nal. Fur­ther­more, it sug­gests that the sophis­ti­cated level that the human mind has reached is unable to grasp the essence or ratio­nale of qual­ity life. In this regard, a peace­ful coex­is­tence with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment would have been deserted for the sake of an unre­strained, inquir­ing human mind. The human mind would, as it were, become cor­rupted with beliefs or ideas that are unten­able in any num­ber of ways.

The advo­cacy that is done by envi­ron­men­tal­ists relate to the ques­tion of envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and its neg­a­tive con­se­quences on humans. They insist that there is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for pro­duc­ing high-tech prod­ucts that harm both humans and the nat­ural envi­ron­ment. This con­tention sounds per­sua­sive. High tech­nol­ogy may demon­strate the height of human accom­plish­ment, but it may not point to moral and social respon­si­bil­ity. And to this point, the ques­tion may be asked: In what ways can humans close the chasm between unre­strained high tech­nol­ogy and envi­ron­men­tal degradation?

Too often, most mod­ern humans tend to think that a sophis­ti­cated lifestyle is prefer­able to a sim­ple one. The for­mer is sup­ported by the weight of high tech­nol­ogy, the lat­ter is mostly not. The for­mer eases the bur­den of depend­ing too much on the dic­tates of the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, the lat­ter does not. The lat­ter tends to seek a sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship with the nat­ural envi­ron­ment, the for­mer does not. Whether human com­fort should come largely from an advanced tech­nol­ogy or the nat­ural envi­ron­ment is not a mat­ter that could be eas­ily answered. If the nat­ural envi­ron­ment is shrink­ing due to pop­u­la­tion growth and other unavoid­able causes, then advanced tech­nol­ogy is required to alle­vi­ate the pres­sures to human com­fort that arise. It is the irre­spon­si­ble pro­lif­er­a­tion of, say, war tech­nol­ogy, high-tech prod­ucts, among oth­ers, that are in need of crit­i­cism and have to stop.

About The Author

Mr. Ainsah-Mensah has worked in var­i­ous capac­i­ties mostly in Canada and now in China. He is an edu­ca­tion and race rela­tions con­sul­tant, projects coor­di­na­tor, writer, and post-secondary instruc­tor in busi­ness courses, life skills, and crit­i­cal think­ing. He is cur­rently the prin­ci­pal of Handan-Lilac Edu­ca­tion Group in China.

kamch22@yahoo.ca

Author: Stephen K. Ainsah-Mensah
Arti­cle Source: EzineArticles.com
Pro­vided by: Dig­i­tal pipeline

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Do you know what it’s like to lose your cell phone? Well, I bet you would feel sim­i­lar to the way that these guys on the roof feel like.

“Don’t lose your con­tacts when your drop your phone. Air­tel. SMS BACKUP”

Oh, by the way, where is the blood?

Adver­tis­ing Agency: REDIFFUSION Y&R Gur­gaon, India
Chief Cre­ative Offi­cers: Ramanuj Shas­try, Sagar Maha­balesh­warkar
Exec­u­tive Cre­ative Direc­tors / Cre­ative Direc­tors: Jaideep Maha­jan, Deepesh Jha
Copy­writ­ers: Deepesh Jha, Megha Dutta
Art Direc­tors: Jaideep Maha­jan, Shameem Moham­mad, Anunay Rai
Pho­tog­ra­pher: Tarun Vishwa

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Look­ing at nature from dif­fer­ent per­spec­tives can cre­ate stun­ning com­po­si­tions for your photographs.

This couldn’t be more true than when we look at our planet from outer space and appre­ci­ate the real­ity of its beauty from such an incred­i­ble and rarely seen perspective.

The images in this com­pi­la­tion are from the Land­sat 7 satel­lite and were cre­ated to intro­duce the gen­eral pub­lic to the Land­sat Program.

Var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions of the eight Land­sat 7 spec­tral bands were selected to cre­ate the vivid RGB com­pos­ites that we have featured.

Here are 60 absolutely stun­ning images of the Earth as seen from outer space. Click on the images for large res­o­lu­tion ver­sions which you can use as wallpapers.

Bogda Moun­tains - The Tur­pan Depres­sion, nes­tled at the foot of China’s Bogda Moun­tains, is a strange mix of salt lakes and sand dunes, and is one of the few places in the world that lies below sea level.

Delta Region, Nether­lands - Along the south­ern coast of the Nether­lands, sediment-laden rivers have cre­ated a mas­sive delta of islands and water­ways in the gaps between coastal dunes. After unusu­ally severe spring tides dev­as­tated this region in 1953, the Dutch built an elab­o­rate sys­tem of dikes, canals, dams, bridges, and locks to hold back the North sea.

Akpa­tok Island - Akpa­tok Island lies in Ungava Bay in north­ern Que­bec, Canada. Acces­si­ble only by air, Akpa­tok Island rises out of the water as sheer cliffs that soar 500 to 800 feet (150 to 243 m) above the sea sur­face. The island is an impor­tant sanc­tu­ary for cliff-nesting seabirds. Numer­ous ice floes around the island attract wal­rus and whales, mak­ing Akpa­tok a tra­di­tional hunt­ing ground for native Inuit people.

Allu­vial Fan, China - A vast allu­vial fan blos­soms across the des­o­late land­scape between the Kun­lun and Altun moun­tain ranges that form the south­ern bor­der of the Tak­li­makan Desert in China’s Xin­Jiang Province.

Atlas Moun­tains - These are the Anti-Atlas Moun­tains, part of the Atlas Moun­tain range in south­ern Morocco, Africa. The region con­tains some of the world’s largest and most diverse min­eral resources, most of which are still untouched.

Boli­vian Defor­esta­tion - Once a vast car­pet of healthy veg­e­ta­tion and vir­gin for­est, the Ama­zon rain for­est is chang­ing rapidly. This image of Bolivia shows dra­matic defor­esta­tion in the Ama­zon Basin. Log­gers have cut long paths into the for­est, while ranch­ers have cleared large blocks for their herds. Fan­ning out from these clear-cut areas are set­tle­ments built in radial arrange­ments of fields and farms. Healthy veg­e­ta­tion appears bright red in this image.

Brand­berg Mas­sif - Ris­ing unex­pect­edly from the heart of the Namib Desert in north­ern Namibia, the Brand­berg Mas­sif is an exhumed gran­ite intru­sion. Unique plant and ani­mal com­mu­ni­ties thrive in its high-altitude envi­ron­ment, and pre­his­toric cave paint­ings dec­o­rate walls hid­den in its steep cliffs.

Cabo San Anto­nio – Sev­eral hun­dred kilo­me­ters south­east of Buenos Aires, Cabo San Anto­nio juts out into the Atlantic Ocean along the Argen­tinean Coast.

Can­cun - Known for its beaches and resort hotels, Can­cun lies at the tip of Mexico’s Yucatan Penin­sula. Inland from this tourist mecca, how­ever, lies a sparsely pop­u­lated trop­i­cal scrub for­est that shel­ters the ruins of ancient Mayan cities.

Campeche – Named after the ancient Mayan Province of Kim­pech, the state of Campeche com­prises much of the west­ern half of Mexico’s Yucatan Penin­sula. Rivers in south­ern Campeche drain into the immense Ter­mi­nos Lagoon, the entrance to which is pro­tected by a long bar­rier island, Isla Del Carmen.

Coahuila, Mex­ico - This des­o­late land­scape is part of the Sierra Madre Ori­en­tal moun­tain range, on the bor­der between the Coahuila and Nuevo Leon provinces of Mexico.

Col­ima Vol­cano - Snow-capped Col­ima Vol­cano, the most active vol­cano in Mex­ico, rises abruptly from the sur­round­ing land­scape in the state of Jalisco. Col­ima is actu­ally a meld­ing of two vol­ca­noes, the older Nevado de Col­ima to the north and the younger, his­tor­i­cally more active Vol­can de Col­ima to the south. Leg­end has it that gods sit atop the vol­cano on thrones of fire and ice.

Dasht-e Kevir – The Dasht-e Kevir, or val­ley of desert, is the largest desert in Iran. It is a pri­mar­ily unin­hab­ited waste­land, com­posed of mud and salt marshes cov­ered with crusts of salt that pro­tect the mea­ger mois­ture from com­pletely evaporating.

Dem­ini River – A marsh-like area bor­ders the Dem­ini River in north­west­ern Brazil. The Dem­ini even­tu­ally joins the Ama­zon River.

Des­o­la­tion Canyon – Utah’s Green River flows south across the Tava­puts Plateau (top) before enter­ing Des­o­la­tion Canyon (cen­ter). The Canyon slices through the Roan and book Cliffs – two long, staircase-like escarp­ments. Nearly as deep as the Grand Canyon, Des­o­la­tion Canyon is one of the largest unpro­tected wilder­ness areas in the Amer­i­can West.

Edrengiyn Nuruu - The Edrengiyn Nuruu forms a tran­si­tion zone between the Mon­go­lian steppes to the north and the arid deserts of north­ern China to the south.

Ganges River Delta - The Ganges River forms an exten­sive delta where it emp­ties into the Bay of Ben­gal. The delta is largely cov­ered with a swamp for­est known as the Sun­der­bans, which is home to the Royal Ben­gal Tiger.

Gar­den City, Kansas – Cen­ter pivot irri­ga­tion sys­tems cre­ate red cir­cles of healthy veg­e­ta­tion in this image of crop­lands near Gar­den City, Kansas.

Ghadamis River - This scar on an arid land­scape is the dry riverbed of the Ghadamis River in the Tin­rhert Hamada Moun­tains near Ghadamis, Libya.

Gosses Bluff – 142 mil­lion years ago, an aster­oid or comet slammed into what is now the Mis­sion­ary Plains in Australia’s North­ern Ter­ri­tory, form­ing a crater 24 kilo­me­ters in diam­e­ter and 5 kilo­me­ters deep. Today, like a bull’s eye, the cir­cu­lar ring of hills that defines Gosses Bluff stands as a stark reminder of the event.

Great Salt Desert - Like swirls of paint on an enor­mous can­vas, shal­low lakes, mud­flats, and salt marshes share the sin­u­ous val­leys on Iran’s largely unin­hab­ited Dasht-e Kavir, or Great Salt Desert.

Great Sandy Desert – The west­ern region of Australia’s Great Sandy Desert is in an area almost devoid of sand, but char­ac­ter­ized by com­plex geology.

Great Sandy Scars – In a small cor­ner of the vast Great Sandy Desert in West­ern Aus­tralia, large sand dunes –the only sand in this desert of scrub and rock — appear as lines stretch­ing from left to right. The light-colored fan shapes are scars from wildfires.

Green­land Coast – Along Greenland’s west­ern coast, a small field of glac­i­ers sur­rounds Baf­fin Bay.

Guinea-Bissau - Guinea-Bissau is a small coun­try in West Africa. Com­plex pat­terns can be seen in the shal­low waters along its coast­line, where silt car­ried by the Geba and other rivers washes out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Har­rat Al Birk - Dark-colored vol­canic cones sprout from an ancient lava field known as Har­rat Al Birk along Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast­line. Many such lava fields dot the Ara­bian Penin­sula and range in age from 2 mil­lion to 30 mil­lion years old.

The Himalayas - Soar­ing, snow-capped peaks and ridges of the east­ern Himalayas Moun­tains cre­ate an irreg­u­lar white-on-red patch­work between major rivers in south­west­ern China. The Himalayas are made up of three par­al­lel moun­tain ranges that together extend more than 2900 kilometers.

Iraqi Emplace­ment – In an area north of the city of Al-Basrah, Iraq, which bor­ders Iran, a for­mer wet­land has been drained and walled off. Now lit­tered with mine­fields and gun emplace­ments, it is a stag­ing area for mil­i­tary exercises.

Jau Park – Fed by mul­ti­ple water­ways, Brazil’s Negro River is the Ama­zon River’s largest trib­u­tary. The mosaic of partially-submerged islands vis­i­ble in the chan­nel dis­ap­pears when rainy sea­son down­pours raise the water level.

Jor­dan – Mean­der­ing wadis com­bine to form dense, branch­ing net­works across the stark, arid land­scape of south­east­ern Jor­dan. The Ara­bic word “wadi” means a gully or streambed that typ­i­cally remains dry except after drench­ing, sea­sonal rains.

Kam­chatka Penin­sula – The east­ern side of Russia’s Kam­chatka Penin­sula juts into the Pacific Ocean west of Alaska. In this win­ter image, a vol­canic ter­rain is hid­den under snow-covered peaks and val­ley glac­i­ers feed blue ice into coastal waters.

Von Kar­man Vor­tices - As air flows over and around objects in its path, spi­ral­ing eddies, known as Von Kar­man vor­tices, may form. The vor­tices in this image were cre­ated when pre­vail­ing winds sweep­ing east across the north­ern Pacific Ocean encoun­tered Alaska’s Aleut­ian Islands.

Kil­i­man­jaro, Tan­za­nia - Por­tions of Kenya and Tan­za­nia, Africa, can be seen in this image. The peak of Kil­i­man­jaro is on the right; the moun­tain is flanked by the plains of Amboseli National Park to the north and the rugged Arusha National Park to the south and west.

Konari, Iran – The Mand River and the small town of Konari nes­tle in the Zagros Moun­tains in west­ern Iran.

Lake Amadeus – Like fran­tic brush­strokes, fire scars cover the arid land­scape near Lake Amadeus (upper right) in Australia’s North­ern Ter­ri­tory. Lake Amadeus is rich in salts that have been leached out of under­ly­ing sed­i­ments. When dry, its lake bed is trans­formed into a glis­ten­ing sheet of white salt crystals.

Lake Carnegie – Ephemeral Lake Carnegie, in West­ern Aus­tralia, fills with water only dur­ing peri­ods of sig­nif­i­cant rain­fall. In dry years, it is reduced to a muddy marsh.

Lake Dis­ap­point­ment – Sur­rounded by sand dunes, Lake Dis­ap­point­ment is an ephemeral salt lake in one of the most remote areas of West­ern Aus­tralia. An early explorer sup­pos­edly named the lake in 1897 after fol­low­ing a num­ber of creeks that he thought would lead to a large lake; they did, but the lake’s extremely salty water was not drinkable.

Lena Delta - The Lena River, some 2,800 miles (4,400 km) long, is one of the largest rivers in the world. The Lena Delta Reserve is the most exten­sive pro­tected wilder­ness area in Rus­sia. It is an impor­tant refuge and breed­ing grounds for many species of Siber­ian wildlife.

Malaspina Glac­ier - The tongue of the Malaspina Glac­ier, the largest glac­ier in Alaska, fills most of this image. The Malaspina lies west of Yaku­tat Bay and cov­ers 1,500 sq. MI (3,880 sq. km).

Mis­sis­sippi River Delta - Tur­bid waters spill out into the Gulf of Mex­ico where their sus­pended sed­i­ment is deposited to form the Mis­sis­sippi River Delta. Like the web­bing on a duck’s foot, marshes and mud­flats pre­vail between the ship­ping chan­nels that have been cut into the delta.

Mt. Etna - Located on the Ital­ian island of Sicily, Mt. Etna is one of the world’s most active vol­ca­noes. In this image of the vol­cano in 2001, a plume of steam and smoke ris­ing from the crater drifts over some of the many dark lava flows that cover its slopes.

Namib Desert, Namibia – Namib-Naukluft National Park is an eco­log­i­cal pre­serve in Namibia’s vast Namib Desert. Coastal winds cre­ate the tallest sand dunes in the world here, with some dunes reach­ing 980 feet (300 meters) in height.

Niger River, Massina Mali – Cours­ing through parched, land­locked Mali in West­ern Africa, the Niger River skirts the edge of the dune-striped Sahara before turn­ing sharply south to join the Bani River. At the con­flu­ence of the two rivers is an inland delta com­plete with nar­row, twist­ing water­ways, lagoons, and tiny islands.

North­ern Nor­way – Like dark fin­gers, cold ocean waters reach deeply into the moun­tain­ous coast­line of north­ern Nor­way, defin­ing the fjords for which the coun­try is famous. Flanked by snow-capped peaks, some of these ice-sculpted fjords are hun­dreds of meters deep.

Ocean Sand, Bahamas – Though the above image may resem­ble a new age paint­ing straight out of an art gallery in Venice Beach, Cal­i­for­nia, it is in fact a satel­lite image of the sands and sea­weed in the Bahamas. The image was taken by the Enhanced The­matic Map­per plus (ETM+) instru­ment aboard the Land­sat 7 satel­lite. Tides and ocean cur­rents in the Bahamas sculpted the sand and sea­weed beds into these mul­ti­col­ored, fluted pat­terns in much the same way that winds sculpted the vast sand dunes in the Sahara Desert.

The Opti­mist, Kala­hari Desert, Namibia - On the edge of the Kala­hari Desert in Namibia, sand dunes are encroach­ing onto once-fertile lands in the north. Healthy veg­e­ta­tion appears red in this image; in the cen­ter, notice the lone red dot. It is the result of a center-pivot irri­ga­tion sys­tem, evi­dence that at least one opti­mistic farmer con­tin­ues to work the fields despite the approach­ing sand.

Parana River Delta – The Parana River delta is a huge forested marsh­land about 20 miles north­east of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The area is a very pop­u­lar tour des­ti­na­tion. Guided boat tours can be taken into this vast labyrinth of marsh and trees. The Parana River delta is one of the world’s great­est bird-watching des­ti­na­tions. This image high­lights the strik­ing con­trast between dense for­est and wet­land marshes, and the deep blue rib­bon of the Parana River.

Pinacate Vol­cano Field - The pock­marked ter­rain of Pinacate National Park in Mexico’s Sonora Province is evi­dence of a vio­lent past. Among hun­dreds of vol­canic vents and cin­der cones are rare maar craters, formed when ris­ing magma met under­ground water to cre­ate pock­ets of steam that blew nearly cir­cu­lar holes in the over­ly­ing crust.

Richat Struc­ture - The so-called Richat Struc­ture is a geo­log­i­cal for­ma­tion in the Maur Adrar Desert in the African coun­try of Mau­ri­ta­nia. Although it resem­bles an impact crater, the Richat Struc­ture formed when a vol­canic dome hard­ened and grad­u­ally eroded, expos­ing the onion-like lay­ers of rock.

Shoe­maker Crater - Resem­bling splotches of yel­low and green paint, salt-encrusted sea­sonal lakes dot the floor of West­ern Australia’s Shoe­maker impact struc­ture. The struc­ture was formed about 1.7 bil­lion years ago and is cur­rently the old­est known impact site in Australia.

Sulaiman Moun­tains – The Sulaiman Moun­tains are a major geo­log­i­cal fea­ture of Pak­istan and one of the bor­der­ing ranges of the Indian subcontinent.

Syr­ian Desert - Between the fer­tile Euphrates River val­ley and the cul­ti­vated lands of the east­ern Mediter­ranean coast, the Syr­ian Desert cov­ers parts of mod­ern Syria, Jor­dan, Saudi Ara­bia, and Iraq.

Terkezi Oasis – A series of rocky out­crop­pings are a promi­nent fea­ture of this Sahara Desert land­scape near the Terkezi Oasis in the coun­try of Chad.

Ugab River - Elu­sive, but eco­log­i­cally vital, Namibia’s Ugab River only flows above ground for a few days each year. The sub­ter­ranean waters under­ly­ing this ephemeral river, how­ever, are shal­low enough in places to fill hol­lows and sus­tain a wildlife pop­u­la­tion that includes the rare desert elephant.

Vat­na­jökull Glac­ier Ice Cap - Val­ley glac­i­ers appear as fin­gers of blue ice reach­ing out from the Vat­na­jökull Glac­ier in Iceland’s Skaftafell National Park. The park lies on the south­ern edge of Vat­na­jökull, Europe’s largest icecap.

Vol­ca­noes - Steep-sided vol­canic cones along the Chilean-Argentinean bor­der add tex­ture to this “study in blue.” Of approx­i­mately 1800 vol­ca­noes scat­tered across this region, 28 are active.

Volga River Delta – Where the Volga River flows into the Caspian Sea, it cre­ates an exten­sive delta. The Volga Delta is com­prised of more than 500 chan­nels, and sus­tains the most pro­duc­tive fish­ing grounds in Eurasia.

West Fjords – The West Fjords are a series of penin­su­las in north­west­ern Ice­land. They rep­re­sent less than one-eighth the country’s land area, but their jagged perime­ter accounts for more than half of Iceland’s total coastline.

The Yukon Delta - An intri­cate maze of small lakes and water­ways define the Yukon Delta at the con­flu­ence of Alaska’s Ukon and Kuskok­wim Rivers with the frigid Bering Sea. Wildlife abounds on the delta and off­shore where sheets of sea ice form dur­ing the cold­est months of the year.

Com­piled by WDD. These images are cour­tesy of the USGS National Cen­ter for the EROS and NASA Land­sat Project Sci­ence Office. Used with permission.

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